Miza Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the group show “Pasolini Prossimo Nostro” [Pasolini Our Next] on May 9, which will be open to the public through June 12, 2013 and will feature the work of various artists who have been influenced by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Pier Paolo Pasolini(1922 – 1975) is one of the most courageous and influential artists of the 20th century. His oeuvre, which spans poetry, film and painting, stands in the van guard of mid-century (and beyond) debates on social inequality, violence and the alienation of human beings in modernity. Interpreted by many as perverse and radical, Pasolini’s critique of modernity is also romantic: his films frequently present us with alternative, pre-modern realities, where people live in the absence of religion, government or technology. His social critique is also a testimony of attacks on him as a homosexual and an atheist. And yet, these aspects of his being, which Pasolini never denied or hid, continue to be embodied in his films’ protagonists.

The artists of “Pasolini Prossimo Nostro” have been influenced by and refer to different elements of Pasolini’s vast body of work, but especially his views on power and its effects on the social and individual body, which have been thoroughly articulated [also] in Giuseppe Bertolucci’s documentary with the same title (2006).

As we see in the works of Adrian Paci, Blerdi Fatusha, Endri Dani and Leke M Gjeloshi who coincidentally or not, are all from Shkodra and have lived and worked in Italy, Pasolini’s social critique is highly relevant even today, in Albania and elsewhere.

A more detailed discussion of each artist’s work will be presented on the day of the opening of the exhibition. To better contextualize their work and its relationship to Pasolini’s thought, the exhibition will also be accompanied by the screening of five of his films, the titles of which are listed below: